Faith in Jesus Christ is our response to God's elective purpose in our life. These two truths–God's initiative and man's response–co-exist throughout the Bible. The gospel is "the message of truth" because truth is its predominant characteristic. Salvation was conceived by the God of truth (Ps. 31:5); purchased by the Son, who is the truth (John 14:6); and is applied by the Spirit of truth (John 16:13). To know it is to know the truth that sets men free (John 8:32). Believers are people of the truth (John 18:37), who worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24), and who obey the Word of truth (John 17:17). People have rejected, neglected, redefined, and opposed God’s truth for centuries. Some cynically deny that truth even exists or that it can be known by men (John 18:38). Others foolishly think that denying truth will somehow make it go away. Truth determines the validity of one's belief. Believing a lie doesn't make it true. Conversely, failing to believe the truth doesn't make it a lie. The gospel is true because Jesus is true, not simply because Christians believe in Him. His resurrection proved the truth of His claims and constitutes the objective basis of our faith (Rom. 1:4; 1 Pet. 1:3). Truth is our protection and strength (Eph. 6:14). Throughout history, people have tried everything imaginable to gain favor with God. Most turn to religion, but religion apart from Christ is merely a satanic counterfeit of the truth. At the heart of every false religion is the notion that man can come to God by any means he chooses–by meditating, doing good deeds, and so on. But Scripture says, "There is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). That name is Jesus Christ, and we come to Him by confessing and repenting of our sin, trusting in His atoning death on the cross, and affirming His bodily resurrection from the grave (cf. Rom. 10:9-10). There is no other way to God. False religious leaders and teachers talk much about God’s love, but not His wrath and holiness; much about how deprived of good things people are, but not about their depravity; much about God’s universal fatherhood toward everyone, but not much about his unique fatherhood toward all who believe in His Son; much about what God wants to give to us, but nothing about the necessity of obedience to Him; much about health and happiness, but nothing about holiness and sacrifice. Their message is full of gaps, the greatest of which leaves out a biblical worldview of the saving gospel and replaces it with the worldview of postmodernism with its dominant ethical system of relativism. The Bible describes mankind in the end times: “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 3:7). Spiritual answers cannot be deduced by human reason alone (1 Cor. 2:14). It’s not that spiritual truth is irrational or illogical, but that human wisdom is defective, because it’s tainted by man’s sinfulness, and unable to perceive the things of God. That is why the Bible is so important. It gives us the answers we can’t find on our own. It is God’s Word to mankind. Scripture is divinely revealed truth that fills the vacuum of spiritual ignorance in all of us. Post-truth is the word of the year for 2016 and also the philosophy of the day, According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. In a “post-truth” world, people make choices based on emotion and experience rather than objective fact. So in a post-truth world, truth is irrelevant. What exactly is a post-truth culture? It’s a culture where truth is no longer an objective reality. It has become subjective. It’s what’s true for me—my beliefs, my opinions, determine my truth. So in our post-truth culture, man determines truth. Man makes himself the ultimate authority. This starting point, which rejects God’s Word and the idea of moral absolutes, makes truth subjective. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Christianity is grounded in objective truth. “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). Objective truth exists because we have God’s Word. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Thy word is truth” (John 17:17), and Paul and James describe the Bible as “the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15; James 1:18). The Psalmist says, “The entirety of your word is truth” (Psalm 119:160). Jesus Himself said, “For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice” (John 18:37). When Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except by me” (John 14:6), He wasn’t expressing His personal belief or opinion. He was speaking the truth, a fundamental reality that doesn’t change from person to person. It doesn’t matter if our culture thinks all roads lead to God. The truth of the matter is “no one comes to the Father but by [Jesus].” This blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell

12 injured after earthquake shakes Japan
A violent volcanic eruption in Japan that forced the evacuation of an island appears to have come to a halt, the country’s weather agency said Saturday. The announcement came a day after Mount Shindake, which sits on the far southern island of Kuchinoerabu, sent plumes of ash up to 9,000 metres (29,500 feet) tall shooting into the sky. Television pictures showed the after-effects of the eruption, as ash and rock cascaded down the mountainside towards one of the island’s harbours.

Japanese volcano calm ‘for now’: weather agency
A violent volcanic eruption in Japan that forced the evacuation of an island appears to have come to a halt, the country’s weather agency said Saturday. The announcement came a day after Mount Shindake, which sits on the far southern island of Kuchinoerabu, sent plumes of ash up to 9,000 metres (29,500 feet) tall shooting into the sky.

Why one of the world’s most wanted suspected Nazis never faced justice
In 2012, a journalist visited Vladimir Katriuk at his farm about 40 miles outside Montreal. At one point during the encounter, Katriuk, who was in his 90s, grabbed part of a beehive and started talking about a queen bee. “You see?” he told the Canadian Press reporter. “Here they have started to make the royal cell.” The reporter hadn’t asked about the hive, though. His question was about a list from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which had named the Ukrainian-born beekeeper — who died this month — as one of the world’s most wanted suspected Nazi war criminals.

Activists say Syrian army strikes kill 70 people in Aleppo
Syrian army airstrikes killed at least 70 people, most of them civilians, and wounded scores in attacks Saturday in the northern province of Aleppo that struck civilian areas, including a packed market in a town held by the Islamic State group, activists said.

Nigeria army repels Boko Haram as new president starts term
Nigeria’s military on Saturday repelled a Boko Haram attack on the key northeastern city of Maiduguri, hours after President Muhammadu Buhari took office vowing to crush the Islamist group. Related Stories Deadly violence hits northeast as Nigeria president starts term AFP Nigeria’s new president signals early move against Boko Haram AFP Nigeria’s Maiduguri city hit by deadly bomb, overnight attack Reuters Twin bombs in Nigeria’s Borno state kill seven and injure 12 Reuters Boko Haram retakes Nigerian town of Marte in Borno state Reuters The overnight attack on the Borno state capital saw rocket-propelled grenades fired into homes in a bombardment that reportedly lasted several hours.

Antarctica reaches record ice extent, but temperature trends vary
Scroll down. Antarctic sea ice extent averaged 9.06 million square kilometers (3.5 million square miles) for the month and is now the highest April extent in the satellite record. April extent was 300,000 square kilometers (116,000 square miles) higher than the previous record observed in 2014, and 1.70 million square kilometers (656,000 square miles) above the 1981 to 2010 long-term average.

US military orders review as anthrax mishap widens
The US military said on Friday it discovered even more suspected shipments of live anthrax than previously thought, both in the United States and abroad, and ordered a sweeping review of practices meant to inactivate the bacteria. The Pentagon said a total of 11 states, two more than it first acknowledged, received “suspect samples,” as did Australia and South Korea.

MAGNETIC FILAMENTS ON THE SUN
With no sunspots actively flaring this weekend, solar activity is low. Or is it? There’s more to solar activity than sunspots and flares. “I can’t recall ever seeing as many magnetic filaments on the sun as I have this month,”

Anti-Semitic fliers found in neighborhoods across region
A day after anti-Semitic fliers papered a neighborhood in Chevy Chase, similar fliers turned up in a D.C. neighborhood, and people…had also seen the hateful leaflets at their doorsteps. Multiple people in the Takoma neighborhood in Northwest D.C. contacted the Post to say that they had found the flier — a two-page compilation of declarations about Jews and falsified quotations…

Elderly face NHS discrimination under new UN death targets
The NHS could be led to discriminate against the over 70s to meet ‘highly unethical’ UN health targets which seek to reduce premature deaths in younger people, senior medics have warned. …In an open letter published in The Lancet, an international group of ageing specialists say the new guideline sends out the message that health provision for younger groups must be prioritised at the expense of older people.

US removes Cuba from list of state sponsors of terror
The United States has removed Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. …The change allows Cuba to conduct banking in the United States, among other activities. President Barack Obama announced a historic thaw with Cuba in December, but the US trade embargo against the country remains, and may only be ended by Congress.

Mers virus: China tracking nearly 200 for possible infections
China is trying to track down at least 193 people who may have come in contact with a man with Mers, the country’s first confirmed case of the virus. The alert came as South Korea announced it had two more Mers cases, bringing the total within the country to nine. The outbreak has been traced to a South Korean who visited the Middle East.

US calls for land reclamation ‘halt’ in South China Sea
The US has called for an “immediate and lasting halt” to land reclamation in disputed areas of the South China Sea. US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter told the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore that China’s actions in the area were “out of step” with international rules. China claims almost the whole of the South China Sea, resulting in overlapping claims with its neighbours.

Islamic State militants in Libya ‘seize Sirte airport’
Islamic State militants in Libya say they have seized the airport in the city of Sirte, as the group continues to make advances in the country. The news was announced by the group and by a Libyan militia that withdrew from the coastal city’s airport on Thursday. Most of Sirte, former leader Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown, fell to IS last week.

Pentagon: Anthrax shipments broader than first thought
The Pentagon said Friday that the Army’s mistaken shipments of live anthrax to research laboratories were more widespread than it initially reported, prompting the Defense Department’s second-ranking official to order a thorough review.

U.S. defense chief says China’s island-building erodes security
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter warned on Saturday that Beijing’s island-building in the South China Sea was undermining security in the Asia-Pacific and he called for a diplomatic push to solve the territorial dispute that is driving China’s effort.

Russia steps up propaganda push with online “Kremlin trolls”
Deep inside a four-story marble building in St. Petersburg, hundreds of workers tap away at computers on the front lines of an information war, say those who have been inside. Known as “Kremlin trolls,” the men and women work 12-hour shifts around the clock, flooding the Internet with propaganda aimed at stamping President Vladimir Putin’s world vision on Russia, and the world.

Church-State Separation Group Pressures Public School to Cancel Field Trip to Creation Museum

by Marsha West

Christian New Network reports:

Approximately 100 third graders from Lincoln Elementary School in Glendive were scheduled to visit the Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum on Thursday as they have done for the past seven years. The museum is stated to be the second largest in the state and contains “more than 23 full-size dinosaurs, numerous individual fossils and artifacts, informative exhibits explaining the origin of the geologic column and fossil record,” as well as a variety of other archaeological and historical displays.

Permission slips had been sent home to parents to allow their children to go on the trip.

‘Gay’ Activist’s Call for Churches to Be Forced to Take Homosexuality Off ‘Sin List’ Draws Concerns

(CN) — Concerns are arising among Christians and online commentators after a homosexual activist recently told a national publication that churches “must be made ‘to take homosexuality off the sin list.’”

Mitchell Gold is the founder of Faith in America, an organization that aims to “end the harm to LGBT youth and families from misguided religious teaching.” He served on the board of directors for the Human Rights Campaign for seven years, and was named one of the “Top 50 Most Powerful Gay People in America” in 2007 by Out Magazine.

(CN) — A worship leader from North Carolina and his wife are mourning the loss of both of their children following a car accident over the weekend.

According to reports, Gentry Eddings of Forest Lake Church in Ballantyne and his wife Hadley traveled to Gentry’s sister’s wedding on Friday where Eddings officiated over the service. The two traveled separately in a caravan of four family vehicles as they returned home the following day. Hadley, eight months pregnant, rode with the couple’s two-year-old son Dobbs.

(CN) — A new challenge being shared on Twitter has youth across the nation and around the world engaging in an Ouija board-like ritual in an attempt to summon a demon.According to reports, the “Charlie Charlie” challenge involves a Mexican occultist ritual of writing “yes” and “no” on a sheet of paper and crossing two pencils. The ritual is stated to be a type of “rite” for Mexican children.

(CN) — A panel within the leadership of the United Methodist Church has voted to submit a proposal to change the denomination’s law book to remove prohibitions against homosexual behavior and to allow clergy to officiate same-sex ceremonies.The Connectional Table voted 26-10 on Monday to present the amended language during the 2016 General Conference, which would then place the matter up for another vote for official approval.

“It is no exaggeration to say we are at a tipping point of one of the pillars of the American founding: Religious liberty. Can religious liberty be sustained in the America of today which understands itself, and the idea of liberty, in a different way than our forefathers did? John Adams, that venerable founder of our republic, once wrote that we are “a government of laws, not of men.”

Former House speaker Dennis Hastert resigned from the school’s board of advisers of its J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy, a $10 million project housed in the college’s politics, international relations, business and economics departments. Hastert, 73, was indicted Thursday [May 28] by a federal grand jury on charges that he violated banking laws in a bid to pay $3.5 million to someone to cover up “past misconduct.”

The Stage Is Being Set: Is Anybody Paying Attention?

A rehearsal is an event that occurs as preparation for a performance. It is undertaken as a form of practicing, to ensure that all details of the subsequent performance are adequately prepared and coordinated.

Most commonly employed in the performing arts as preparation for a public presentation, rehearsals are nevertheless used in other contexts, as well, to prepare for the performance of any anticipated activity.

Well I want to mention a rehearsal of sorts that just took place in Jerusalem:

The Danger of “Calling On Spirits”

Every generation must deal with the latest repetition of age-old practices that threaten to infiltrate and destroy the relationship between man and his Creator. Throughout the ages, man has intuitively known that “something” exists beyond this earthly realm, and has been tempted to communicate with the spirit world. In our youth, we were introduced to the Ouija Board, a board “game” in which one could supposedly summon spirits from “the other side”, who would respond to questions by moving a pointer around the board. Little did we know how dangerous that so-called “game” really was.
Today’s kids are now engaged in an equally dangerous pastime called “Charlie Charlie”.

Mysterious sounds have been reported around the world, and many witnesses are likening them to the trumpet blasts described in the biblical book of Revelation. WND reported on the phenomenon that has been puzzling people in Britain, Ukraine, the U.S., Germany and Belarus. The reports have prompted new speculation about the end times.

But several authors who have addressed that subject in their books say a good dose of caution is appropriate, concluding the sounds may be a spiritual warning rather than a literal announcement of the end of days.

Pastor, talk-show host and author Carl Gallups, who used the symbol of the trumpets of Revelation as the basis for his exploration of the end times in “Final Warning: Understanding the Trumpet Days of Revelation,” says believers should be wary of hoaxes. “Of course, some would expect an author who has written a book about the ‘trumpet days’ of Revelation to be absolutely giddy about the reported phenomenon of mysterious trumpet sounds coming from the sky at various locations around the world. However, the opposite is true,” he said. FULL REPORT

At least for now, chickens, turkeys and other fowl are the only direct targets of the avian flu outbreak that has spread across the U.S. Yet scientists say there is a subtype of the virus that may have the potential to become a human pandemic.

The outbreak, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture says has affected 20 states, has resulted in the destruction of at least 6 million chickens and turkeys and has put upward pressure on poultry prices. It has also triggered fears that much worse could be in store.

Daniel Janies, professor of bioinformatics and genomics at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte who co-authored a paper this year on the spread of an avian influenza, admits it’s “hard to say” whether the flu could make the jump from contained to catastrophe. Still, according to his research, bird flu has the potential to be “highly pathogenic and periodically infect humans.” FULL REPORT

It’s always interesting to see a long term chart that reflects your real life experiences. I bought my first home in 1990. It was a small townhouse and I paid $100k, put 10% down, and obtained a 9.875% mortgage. I was thrilled to get under 10%. Those were different times, when you bought a home as a place to live. We had our first kid in 1993 and started looking for a single family home. We stopped because our townhouse had declined in value to $85k, so I couldn’t afford to sell. In 1995 I convinced my employer to rent my townhouse, as they were already renting multiple townhouses for all the foreigners doing short term assignments in the U.S. We bought a single family home in 1995 with the sole purpose of having a decent place to raise a family that was within 20 minutes of my job.

Considering home prices on an inflation adjusted basis were lower than they were in 1980, I was certainly not looking at it as some sort of investment vehicle. But, as you can see from the chart, nationally prices soared by about 55% between 1995 and 2005. My home supposedly doubled in value over 10 years. I was ecstatic when I was eventually able to sell my townhouse in 2004 for $134k. I felt so smart, until I saw a notice in the paper one year later showing my old townhouse had been sold again for $176k. Who knew there were so many greater fools. FULL REPORT

Vietnam’s deputy defense minister said on Saturday that reports China had placed mobile artillery weapons on a reclaimed island in the disputed South China Sea were, if true, a very worrying development. “If it has actually happened it is a very bad sign for what is already a very complicated situation in the South China Sea,” General Nguyen Chi Vinh told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a security forum in Singapore.

The United States said on Friday that China had placed mobile artillery weapons on a reclaimed island in the disputed South China Sea. Analysts said the artillery could pose a threat to nearby Vietnamese bases, also on disputed territory. The development was described by the Pentagon as one that creates more “uncertainty” in a situation that has grown increasingly tense over the past six months after satellite images showed significant land reclamation activities by China. The U.S. says the Chinese have added some 2,000 acres to five outposts in the resource-rich Spratly islands, including 1,500 acres this year. FULL REPORT

Russian military aircraft were scrambled to head off a U.S. warship that was acting “aggressively” in the Black Sea, state news agency RIA reported on Saturday, citing an anonymous source in Russia’s armed forces in Crimea. The source was quoted as saying that the U.S. destroyer Ross was moving along the edge of Russia’s territorial waters and heading in their direction.

“The crew of the ship acted provocatively and aggressively, which concerned the operators of monitoring stations and ships of the Black Sea Fleet,” RIA quoted the source as saying. “Su-24 attack aircraft demonstrated to the American crew readiness to harshly prevent a violation of the frontier and to defend the interests of the country.” Russia’s Defence Ministry was not immediately available to comment on the report. The incident is the latest example of encounters between Russian and Western militaries, as tensions continue over the crisis in Ukraine and Russia’s annexation of the Crimea peninsula, home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, last year. FULL REPORT

Attendance at the Southern Baptist church on Scenic Drive had dwindled to about 15 most Sundays. The potted plant by the pulpit was from yet another member’s funeral. There was $5,000 in the church bank account and $6,000 in bills when Larry Montgomery, a deacon, reached a conclusion once unthinkable in the heart of the Bible Belt. “We’re just not going to make it,” he announced to the members of Scenic Drive Baptist, and then he told them he might have found a solution.

There was another congregation, he said, a small one that had been meeting in living rooms and whose pastor carried business cards that quoted from John 4:35: “Look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” Maybe they wanted to buy the church. And so phone calls were placed, and a few days later, the prospective buyers held a prayer meeting about what to do. “Abuna Semawi, nashkurak,” the pastor began in Arabic. “Heavenly Father, we thank you.” FULL REPORT

Aviation buff John Zimmerman was at a weekly gathering of neighbors Friday night when he noticed something peculiar: a small plane circling a route overhead that didn’t make sense to him. It was dark, so a sightseeing flight didn’t make sense, and when Zimmerman pulled up more information on an aviation phone app he routinely checks, he had immediate concerns. The plane’s flight path, recorded by the website flightradar24.com, would eventually show that it circled downtown Minneapolis, the Mall of America and Southdale Center at low altitude for hours starting at 10:30 p.m., slipping off radar just after 3 a.m.

“I thought, ‘Holy crap,’ ” said Zimmerman. Bearing the call sign N361DB, the plane is one of three Cessna 182T Skylanes registered to LCB Leasing of Bristow, Va., according to FAA records. The Virginia secretary of state has no record of an LCB Leasing. Virtually no other information could be learned about the company. Zimmerman’s curiosity might have ended there if it weren’t for something he heard from his aviation network recently: A plane registered to NG Research — also located in Bristow — that circled Baltimore for hours after recent violent protests there was in fact an FBI plane that’s part of a widespread but little known surveillance program, according to a report by the Washington Post. FULL REPORT

The United States on Saturday called for an immediate end to China’s intensifying reclamation works in the South China Sea and vowed to continue sending military aircraft and ships to the tense region. US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told a high-level security conference in Singapore that Beijing was behaving “out of step” with international norms. China insists it has sovereignty over nearly all of the South China Sea, a major global shipping route believed to be home to oil and gas reserves.

“First, we want a peaceful resolution of all disputes. To that end, there should be an immediate and lasting halt to land reclamation by all claimants,” Carter said at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue on security with a high-level Chinese military delegation in the audience. “We also oppose any further militarisation of disputed features,” he said.

He acknowledged that other claimants have developed outposts of differing scope and degree, including Vietnam with 48, the Philippines with eight, Malaysia with five and Taiwan with one. “Yet, one country has gone much farther and much faster than any other. “China has reclaimed over 2,000 acres, more than all other claimants combined and more than in the entire history of the region. And China did so in only the last 18 months,” Carter said. FULL REPORT

The Obama administration is preparing to force every charitable organization receiving federal grants to end prohibitions on hiring people based on sexual orientation or gender identity. In its latest “Friday Fax,” the Center for Family and Human Rights, or C-Fam, cites an unnamed but well-placed administration source, who says the administration is definitely headed in that direction. “Our source told us that the administration is moving very quietly to insert sexual orientation and gender identity language into the application process for grantees. They cannot discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and there is no exemption for religious believers,” said C-Fam President Austin Ruse.

“Quietly” appears to be the key word in this process. Ruse said this revelation comes as news to just about everyone. “This caught a lot of faith-based groups off guard. When we started calling around to get comments yesterday, two very big groups had heard nothing about this,” said Ruse, who would not divulge which groups he contacted. “Grantees get grants for carrying out certain tasks that they were doing already,” Ruse said. “A lot of them are faith-based groups. A lot of them are faith-based groups doing work overseas.” FULL REPORT

A shallow 6.4 magnitude earthquake has struck off the Eastern coast of Japan, approximately 250 miles Northeast of the previous 8.5M (7.8 magnitude revised) earthquake which occurred earlier today . We were expecting to see SHALLOW follow up movement strike in an adjacent area from the large deep earthquake this morning due to the fact that the deep earthquakes are proved to cause shallow earthquakes elsewhere nearby.

Just as expected, the area nearby moved at a shallow depth within hours of the deep earthquake. I expect additional shallow larger movement to occur over this coming week, no doubt this 6.4M is just the first compensation movement we’re seeing. FULL REPORT

Thick black smoke rising from the Baiji oil refinery could be seen as a dirty smudge on the horizon as far away as Baghdad after fighters from ISIS set fire to the enormous processing plant just over 100 miles north of the capital last week.

The decision to torch the refinery, which once produced around a third of Iraq’s domestic fuel supplies, was made as the insurgents prepared to pull out of Baiji, which they captured last June in a victory that sent shock waves across world oil markets.

A year on from the start of the siege and a shaky alliance of the Middle East’s major Arab powers, with the limited support of the reluctant US government, has failed to contain the expansion of ISIS.

According to Daniel Yergin, the energy expert and vice-chairman of IHS, the business information provider, the biggest threat to oil prices is the political chaos that threatens to engulf the Middle East, combined with the West’s reluctance to intervene.

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Yergin argued that the price of a barrel of oil could skyrocket to levels above $100 per barrel if Isil is allowed to press deeper into Iraq, the second-largest producer in the cartel after Saudi Arabia.

“ISIS represents a whole new reality for the region, which just isn’t reflected in the oil market at the moment,” said Mr Yergin. “It’s an increasingly grave situation for most of Opec and the Middle East. At some point the security issues will start to come back into the price of oil.”

ISIS takes over major Iraq oil refinery, blockades 150 troops inside:

Against this cataclysmic backdrop of bombs falling in Sana’a and with ISIS literally at the gates of the major Iraqi city of Ramadi, many US energy and security experts were shocked to hear President Barack Obama ignore the danger in a recent keynote speech in which he pinpointed global warming as an equally big risk for Americans.

“Climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security,” warned Mr Obama in a speech that many have criticised as symptomatic of the administration’s desire to disengage from the region which still provides a significant share of its oil.

Despite the growing focus on climate change and the campaign to limit fossil fuel production, ISIS will be a bigger concern for the majority of oil ministers around Opec’s table next week.

The Obama administration’s reluctance to intervene marks the end of a US policy to protect the region’s oil which has remained in existence since President Franklin D Roosevelt first met with modern day Saudi Arabia’s founder King Abdulaziz in 1945. It was this commitment that drew America into the first Gulf War in 1991 and again in 2003 when it decided to bring down the curtain on Saddam Hussein’s regime.

However, Mr Obama’s lack of a viable alternative foreign policy for the region has put world energy markets at risk. source

A shallow, magnitude 3.8 earthquake was reported Friday evening 11 miles from Indio, California according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at 10:23 p.m. at a depth of 3.7 miles.

According to the USGS, the epicenter was 13 miles from Coachella, 17 miles from Palm Desert and 17 miles from La Quinta. In the past 10 days, there have been three earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby. Los Angeles Times

A 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck in the ocean off Japan’s remote Bonin Islands at 11:23 GMT on Saturday, USGS reports. There have been no immediate reports of casualties or damage, nor any tsunami alert. The populated area closest to the quake’s epicenter is the Japanese island of Chichi-Shima with a population of about 2,000 people. It is 189 kilometers from the impact point.

The quake hit at a profound depth of almost 677 kilometers below the ocean bed. The Japan Meteorological Agency said there was no danger of a tsunami. The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center also issued a statement saying “a destructive Pacific-wide tsunami is not expected and there is no threat to Hawaii.” FULL REPORT

While marine biologists, environmental activists and researchers are baffled over the continued rise of dead dolphins washing ashore Mumbai’s coastline over the last month, the State Environment Ministry, on the other hand, is completely oblivious to these incidents, said a report in DNA.

Pravin Pote-Patil, the Minister of State for Environment claimed that he was not aware of any such incidents, adding that the municipal corporation should have informed the environment department about dead dolphins washing ashore immediately as the civic body was primarily responsible for anything related to the city’s beaches.

But he assured that the cause of death would be determined. “Till we don’t pin-point the cause of death, we cannot start any specific mitigation strategy. I will talk to the Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta and initiate a probe,” Patil Told DNA. FULL REPORT

Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection why thousands of fish died in the past week in the state’s coastal waters. Multiple natural fish kills were reported during the past week. The kills were reported in several locations on the Thames River between Norwich and the U.S. Naval Submarine Base in Groton, in the lower Connecticut River, in Clinton Harbor and on the Quinnipiac River.

Thousands of Atlantic menhaden, and smaller numbers of other species were found dead at each location. The population of Atlantic menhaden has grown in local waters for the past two years, most likely due to limits placed on menhaden harvest along the Atlantic coast. Menhaden are caught commercially and made into animal feed and used as bait in lobster, crab and other fisheries. FULL REPORT

It’s the stuff of nightmares – a newly-discovered wasp that turns cockroaches into zombies. The Ampulex Dementor, named after the terrifying soul-suckers from the “Harry Potter” movies, is one of a 139 new species discovered in Asia’s Mekong Delta in 2014, according to a World Widlife Fund report.

The wasp, which was discovered in Thailand, injects venom into a mass of neurons on the cockroach’s belly that turns the roach into a passive zombie, according to the report. “Cockroach wasp venom blocks receptors of the neurotransmitter octopamine, which is involved in the initiation of spontaneous movement. With this blocked, the cockroach is still capable of movement, but is unable to direct its own body,” the report explained.

It gets worse for the wasp’s unfortunate victim. “Once the cockroach has lost control, the wasp drags its stupefied prey by the antennae to a safe shelter to devour it,” the report added. Visitors to the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin voted to name the wasp Ampulex Dementor in a poll, noting the insect’s similarity to the dementors that terrorize Harry Potter and his fellow wizards. FULL REPORT

Neighbors in Central Virginia are reporting a recent surge in copperhead snake sightings. In fact, viewers have contacted our newsroom saying the poisonous snakes are slithering near their homes. One woman posted on the WTVR CBS 6 Facebook page that she had been bitten Wednesday by a copperhead near the family’s woodpile in her Chesterfield County backyard.

“I am currently in the ER because I got bit on the ankle by a copperhead! Please watch the ground and watch your kids!” Traci Byrd-Eagles warned. “I am forever telling my husband and kids to watch for copperheads, especially when around the firewood… We live in a subdivision but are surrounded by woods.” Nearly 24 hours after Byrd-Eagles was bitten, she was recovering at home and “not feeling so great.” She shared a photo of her swollen ankle. WTVR CBS 6 reporter Shelby Brown went in search of answers to find out what folks should do if they spot a copperhead on their property. FULL REPORT

On Friday, the federal government announced that the U.S. economy contracted at a 0.7 percent annual rate during the first quarter of 2015. This unexpected shrinking of the economy is being primarily blamed on “harsh” weather during the first three months of this year and on the strengthening of the U.S. dollar. Most economists are confident that U.S. GDP will rebound back into positive territory when the numbers for the second quarter come out, but if that does not happen we will officially meet the government’s criteria for being in another “recession”.

To make sure that the numbers for Q2 will look “acceptable”, the Bureau of Economic Analysis is about to change the way that it calculates GDP again. They are just going to keep “seasonally adjusting” the numbers until they get what they want. At this point, the government numbers are so full of “assumptions” and “estimates” that they don’t really bear much resemblance to reality anyway. In fact, John Williams of shadowstats.com has calculated that if the government was actually using honest numbers that they would show that we have continually been in a recession since 2005. That is why I am referring to this as a “recession within a recession”. Most people can look around and see that economic conditions for most Americans are not good, and now they are about to get even worse. FULL REPORT

This morning an earthquake forecast was issued for the New Madrid Seismic Zone , calling for 3.0M to 4.0M activity to strike South Illinois towards the Indiana border over the next 7 days. Move forwards about 12 hours, and we now see a very rare 3.4M earthquake has struck South Illinois towards the Indiana border in the EXACT area warned, for the exact magnitude warned.

I’ll be waiting for them to contact me tomorrow. Unless of course they’re too scared to admit they were wrong, and are not science / logic minded. At this point they need to set aside their egos, and preconceived notions, and learn the forecasting process. FULL REPORT

For those of you wondering where the infamous Texas Heat is, it appears it is in Alaska. Parts of Alaska have already climbed into the 90s this year. The warmest so far in Dallas-Fort Worth has been 88 °F. The high of 91 °F in Eagle, Alaska is the hottest ever recorded in the state of Alaska for so early in the season since temperature records began in the 1890s. This is over 30 degrees above normal for them and is the tenth record high they have had this month!

This caught my eye since Eagle, Alaska was one of the random weather stations I had my students collect data from to perform a 100-year temperature analysis. And they found that temperatures in the polar latitudes are heating up faster than those in lower latitudes (like us here in Texas).

Of course, there are seeming exceptions. India (a little farther south in latitude compared to most of Texas) is currently experiencing a searing heat wave with day-after-day temperatures above 110 °F! But the monsoon should be kicking in for them by summer which should cool things down. FULL REPORT

Texas Senate Advances Bill Banning Sharia Law in Family Court When in Conflict With U.S. Law

Alberta creationist Edgar Nernberg digs up what scientists are calling the most

5 Things Christians Should Know about George Pataki’s Faith

Christian Rappers Drop Bombs for Aspiring Bomb-Dropper Ted Cruz

Franklin Graham Says There Is No Tolerance for Christians in Culture After Marine Court-Martialed for Keeping Bible Verse on Her Computer

The faith of Denzel Washington in 8 quotes

Opinion

Matt Chandler, The Village Church offer apology to Karen Hinkley

A Word to Self-Righteous Christians Attacking Josh Duggar

IRS Admits Massive Identity Theft

What Marriage Means to Young Evangelicals

Boy Scouts of America Face Moral Disaster

Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner?

“My Last Day” — the Jesus Anime

9 powerful minutes of animation that begins with a thief behind bars watching the scourging of Jesus, and it ends with the thief dying next to Jesus, and waking to see Him in a beautiful place.

The dying thief: What was so great about his faith?

There are many acts of extraordinary faith in the Bible. The one that has impressed me the most concerns the dying thief on the cross. We could take the approach that he had nothing to lose, so he decided to cast his lot with Jesus. But this makes absolutely no sense of the text and the context.

In this conversion we have a specific fulfillment of Christ’s first words on the cross. No sooner had Christ spoken the words, “Father, forgive them,” had the Father answered that prayer by turning a once-reviling criminal into a Christ-glorifying saint. While the soon-to-be converted criminal was not directly responsible for Christ’s death, he nevertheless joined with those who were and was thus indirectly addressed when Christ asked for God to forgive “them.”

Christ, the sinless one, was numbered with or counted among the transgressors (Isa. 53:12; Luke 22:37), all of whom have a bigger problem than the day-to-day sins they commit. They hate Christ, the God-man. Anyone who has a master other than the Lord Jesus hates him (Lk. 16:13; Gal. 4:8). That these two criminals loathed him is clearly manifested during the crucifixion: “And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way” (Matt. 27:44).

When the criminal who was converted was doing his worst against Christ, Christ was doing his best for this criminal.

The conversion of the one criminal was most extraordinary and testifies to the power of Christ’s prayer and the grace of God. Why?

This criminal’s faith did not come at a time such as when Christ turned water into wine; or performed miracles, such as walking on water, opening the eyes of a blind man, or raising Lazarus from the dead. No! The criminal believed on the Messiah while he was hanging as one cursed upon a tree. The criminal trusted in and boldly defended the one whose disciples had abandoned him. Jesus was at his lowest when this criminal asked to be remembered in Christ’s kingdom.

When he was on the cross, did anyone publicly cry out, as John the Baptist did, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn. 1:29)? But this is essentially what the dying thief did. Little wonder, then, that Christ should promise him a place in his kingdom: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk. 23:43).

The criminal acknowledged he was guilty; he acknowledged that Christ was not (“this man has done nothing wrong”); he feared God; but, and here is the key: the criminal did not merely want to be in a better place. He wanted to be with Christ in a better place: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Lk. 23:42). The criminal believed “against all hope”.

Heaven is a better place because that is where Christ is. Everyone wants to go to heaven, but not everyone wants to go to Christ’s heaven. Not so with this criminal: he saw, with his eyes, Christ at his worst; but with the eyes of faith, he believed that Christ would soon be at his best, and so put his faith in a dying king.

Christ is always – always! – willing to save even the most miserable of sinners. A recognition of guilt (Lk. 23:40) and a confidence in him and not ourselves (Lk. 23:42) will always lead to the most assuring truth a sinner can receive: the Savior welcomes such into his paradise!

“One is saved, and we may not despair; the other is lost, and we may not presume.” Spurgeon

Remember the thief.

It can be a difficult situation if someone you are witnessing to asks about the fate of a loved one who died and was not a Christian. Simply say, “Only God knows the eternal destiny of the person, and the Scriptures assure us that He will do what is right. So we can take consolation from that.” Some may be tempted to say that the loved one went to hell, but the truth is that we don’t know what happened minutes before their death. Remember the thief on the cross.

Our Time is Short

Ready to start your new life with God?

Who do you think that I am?

With that brief question Jesus Christ confronted His followers with the most important issue they would ever face. He had spent much time with them and made some bold claims about His identity and authority. Now the time had come for them either to believe or deny His teachings.

Who do you say Jesus is? Your response to Him will determine not only your values and lifestyle, but your eternal destiny as well.

“A simple layman armed with Scripture is to be believed above a pope or a council without it…” – Martin Luther

This blog is an aggregator of news and information that we believe will provide articles that will keep people informed about current trends, current events, discussions and movements taking place within our church and culture.

A headline link on this blog post doesn’t necessarily mean that there is agreement or approval with all the views and opinions expressed within the headline linked article. Caution is also warranted with regards to the advertisements and links that are embedded within the headline linked article.

“Permit me to offer my observations about why the Episcopal churches have hollowed out. They are not the result of a scientific survey, but my hunch is that they will ring true with many Episcopalians with traditional views. My observations are based on experiences I had while attending talent shows with a friend at an Episcopal church (now closed) just outside of New Haven, Conn.”

“Some leaders seem to have an endless supply of energy, enthusiasm, and passion. Even these super-leaders have to take time to feed themselves. If you fail to do this, you will find yourself depleted and weak. Take the time to do something for yourself—those you lead will be glad, and you will be more effective.”

“Wherever you look, religion is mutating, thriving, growing. Southeast Asia is as fiercely religious as ever. Same with India. Africa — this century’s next superpower — is the most religious continent on the planet. In America, disaffiliation is changing the face of American religion, but at the same time, higher proportions of people today than in the 1950s declare believing in God, or having had a religious experience, or praying frequently.”

“There is a caricature of young Reformed guys as being hard to get along with and angry. I agree. But it’s not because they’re Reformed. It’s because they are young, mere infants in the faith. It’s not true of every young Christian, but it seems to be particularly true of zealous, academically minded men.”

“Fatigued leaders don’t consider vision beyond the end of this workday. While not ignoring the “big picture,” strengthen your vision for one area of the church about which you are passionate. Talk to local leaders about needs in your community. Your vision will expand when you see again the world outside your church.”

Evangelical Protestants Are The Biggest Winners When People Change Faiths

“They’re better at holding on to the people born into their tradition (65 percent retention compared to 59 percent for Catholics and 45 percent for Mainline Protestants), and they’re a stronger attractor for people leaving other faiths. According to Pew’s data on conversion rates, 10 percent of people raised Catholic wind up as evangelicals. Just 2 percent of people born as evangelicals wind up Catholic.”

“Baptism is a divinely-instituted sign and seal. As has been mentioned, our Lord did a great number of things which has not instituted for our perpetual use and observance but baptism is instituted for perpetual use and observance until he returns. It is a sign of the washing away of our sins and it is a seal of the same.”

John Lanagan of My Word Like Fire has an update on New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) false teachers who are becoming mainstream thanks largely to pro-family leaders; likewise Assemblies of God leaders, which Lanagan has brought to light in a string of articles he has written on the NAR. A case can be made that many of these so-called leaders lack spiritual discernment. He writes:

Jesus Christ “died for you, He died for me. Absolutely. But that’s not all He died for. He came to destroy the works of the devil and He came to take back everything that was lost in the Garden, and according to Luke 4 one of the primary things that was lost was authority over kingdoms…” –Faytene Grassechi, speaking at Empowered21 (bold and italics mine)

The Empowered21 organization met recently in Jerusalem with Christians from around the world, and the event essentially served to introduce New Apostolic Reformation leaders and teachers to many.

There is no biblical basis for Dominionism, the aberrant belief that Christians must take control of the earth before Christ can or will return. This is a terrible misunderstanding of Genesis 1:28. Nevertheless, this aberrant teaching is a foundational belief of the New Apostolic Reformation. It is why you will often find the NAR in politics, and seeking to influence nations.

The Chargers faced formidable opponents in the Okemos Chieftains, who had consistently dominated the 60-school tournament. The Chieftains were the returning champions. Both teams faced a gauntlet of questions ranging from particle physics and Scottish literature to botany and African geopolitics—a range of inquiry likely to inspire panic in most adults.

People are complicated and multifaceted. Life is not a zero-sum game: A person can have redeeming value and disagree — even vigorously and vehemently — with you on issues dear to you. We need to get back to the idea of tolerating differences and debating ideas in the public square. Perhaps it’s time for both sides to give the “bigot” bomb a rest.

What I do know is what he wouldn’t do. Jesus would never sin. He would never go against his Father’s Word or law. He came to fulfill it, not to destroy it. I know that he comes to save and not to condemn and yet he still calls sin, sin. I know that Jesus was gentle and mild, but he was not ‘nice’. He spoke the truth bluntly – especially to religious and political leaders. He didn’t play politics, or do back room deals. And he was incredibly radical, pointing out that following him was a cross and that anyone who wanted to had better forget popular acclaim and instead be ready for persecution.

So it seems that since I know that my all-powerful heavenly Father is working through all circumstances to accomplish his good purpose for me and all of his children, that it should be easier for me to rest in this knowledge and accept it. I should not find it so difficult to live in the light of this wonderful truth.

All that is truthful, from whatever source, is unified, and will cohere with whatever else is truthful. (“Because God’s reality is unified and coherent, centered as it is on the person of Christ, all truthful apprehensions of that reality, or truthful expressions of those apprehensions, will cohere and contribute to an integrated, unified, Christ-centered vision of all things.”

What’s the core of Reformed theology for you? For me, the three Cs: Calvinistic, covenantal, and confessional. Ironically, the earliest Baptist confessions are Reformed Baptist confessions. Our church is a Second London Baptist Confession church. … Our roots and our heritage are Reformed. We are the radical Reformers. We reformed on baptism when our Presbyterian brothers left off there, so we would argue that we’re actually more reformed than Presbyterians are.

It is in the New Jerusalem (New Heavens and Earth; Paradise; Heaven; Kingdom) that the church will eternally thrive in the presence of the Father. And all of this is due to the wonderful, gracious, and powerful leadership of the Great Shepherd — the King of kings. With a mighty hand God disciplines his covenant people, and with a tender hand he skillfully guides them all the way to glory. Jesus is greater than Moses. He is greater than David. He is the Faithful Son who leads all God’s chosen sons to their eternal rest.

The Theological Forum presented a report and a motion to extend the same status to same sex couples that had participated in a gay marriage rather than a civil partnership ceremony. Although the Theological Forum viewed their motion as simply an extension of the act passed on Saturday, and tried to frame their argument in terms of a legal, equality, and justice framework; those opposed to the motion saw it as a de facto attempt to redefine marriage without debating the issue.

Can Americans say a permanent “no” to recognizing plural marriage once we’ve rooted for the Browns to get a “My Sisterwife’s Closet” jewelry line off the ground? Can a cultural left that believes in proliferating gender identities and Bruce Jenner’s essential womanhood draw the line, long-term, when a lesbian couple wants to include their baby’s biological father in their legal family, or when the child of polygamists stands up in court to say he wants his dad recognized as his mother’s legal spouse? Is a culture where prominent men routinely have multiple kids with multiple wives across multiple decades going to permanently deny marriage rights to people who want the same thing, except all at once?

Our aim at Berean Research is to alert our visitors to the apostate movements that have infiltrated the Church. The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) is one such movement and it’s growing in leaps and bounds. In his latest piece, John Lanagan alerts us to yet another of the NAR’s “ravening wolves” Gaytene Grassechi. Lanagan includes a quote […]

(Lighthouse Trails Research) On Friday, a long-time Lighthouse Trails reader contacted our office regarding the following situation. The person who called had attended Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa for several years but has not been attending for some time. According to an article titled “Can I Attend My LGBT Friend’s Wedding?” written by Calvary Chapel Costa […]

The Hal Lindsey Report: Why Bad News Leads to Good News

Finally, contrary to what my critics would have you believe, I do not preach doom and gloom. I preach truth and grace. I also preach that the Big News of Christ’s soon return will be carried in on an ever-increasing wave of Bad News. That’s precisely what the Bible warned would happen. That’s one of the signs that we are nearing the end of this Age of Grace.

A Voice for Those Who Are Silenced

Jan Markell and Jill Martin Rische talk with Pastor Steven Khoury who is a voice for Christians silenced in his region, the Middle East. His evangelical outreach is greatly persecuted by the Muslims of the area. He received a standing ovation following his message at our “Understanding the Times Fall 2014” conference. He just addressed the United Nations as well. Then Jan and Eric Barger discuss the silence in the pulpit about all the issues that matter today. How can pastors be approached to deal with the important things the pulpit neglects today? We use the mobile app found at http://www.oneplace.com.

Our Sexed-Up Culture Has Ruined Healthy Male-Female Work Relationships, Halee Gray Scott. If you haven’t thought much about male-female work relationships, chances are you don’t have any. There are two ways to go wrong when it comes to these types of relationships: on one end, being naïve and avoiding boundaries of every sort; on the other end, treating those of the opposite sex solely as a temptation. Scott charts a helpful middle course.

What Kind of Writer Are You: Microwave, Crockpot, or Stir-Fry?Trevin Wax. This probably applies to just about any long-term project, but it’s particularly relevant for those of us who traffic in the written word. Wax fancies himself a stir-fry kind of guy. I (Chris) think I tend more toward the crockpot. But it seems wise to have the capacity to do all three. Where do you fall?

Nine Things We’re Glad We’ve Learning in Our Marriage (So Far), Aaron Armstrong. The road to the altar was a “long and complicated one” for Armstrong. I suspect that’s true of many contemporary romances, so it’s encouraging to hear what Aaron and his wife Emily have learned since saying “I do.” (Also, not central to the article, but noteworthy nonetheless: Armstrong taught me a new euphemism for trying to get pregnant. It’s “leaving the barn door open.” Indeed.)

Five Ways to Rise Above Internet Outrage, Brant Hansen. Outrage isn’t new, of course. But internet outrage seems to be in its prime, particularly with the rise of social media. (Did Zuckerburg know what mayhem he was creating with that online catalogue of faces? Did he know? I digress…) It’s easy to respond to current events with anger and outrage. So how do we, as Hansen puts it, “wade through a sea of insults and general wrongness without getting worked up into a self-righteous lather?” It’s a good question. And he has a good answer.

Ten Considerations as Pastors Consider Illegal Immigration, Nathan Busenitz. Many churches haven’t started to think through how they minister to undocumented residents in the U.S. But it’s high time we have the talk, because the political conversation certainly isn’t giving us many helpful cues. Busenitz (a pastor in L.A.) has given us a very helpful head start.

The Christian Church is called to address the issues of society with the gospel, love and truth of Jesus Christ. Over the past several decades many are concerned with how the church has been absent on issues like abortion, homosexual marriage and other issues. What should the role of the Church be in these times […]

Bigger is better, right? The Church Growth Movement has captured the fancy of Christian leaders and members alike. After all, if our churches are bigger and growing, that means God is behind it, right? Not so fast. Our guest this morning Pastor Gary Gilley has some concerns about the “bigger is better” movement sweeping American […]

John Burton has written a piece titled “Ancient and Emerging: 5 Major Changes Coming to the Church.” Before you get all excited, or maybe even concerned over those changes, you should know a bit more about Burton. As it turns out he’s a “prophet in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement. According to his blog, […]

There are a lot of Christian leaders out there who are manipulating everything from spiritual gifts tests to oracles from God to signs and wonders in their church services. There are those who are cessationists – who believe speaking in tongues and speaking prophecies are not active for today, and those who believe the gifts […]

DUBLIN — Ireland became the first nation to adopt same-sex marriage by popular vote May 22 after a months-long campaign by advocates of traditional marriage to preserve the institution failed. The referendum drew more than 1.2 million people to the polls for the vote, which has now shifted once-conservative Ireland squarely into the liberal column […]

There can be little doubt that if a Duggar came out as a homosexual who’d acted out sexually in their mid-teen years, they’d be the most celebrated, adored and defended creature in the modern mainstream media universe. That much should be obvious at this point, whatever one’s perspective might be on the many tragic aspects of the […]

So would you like to live forever armed with superhuman powers? To be your own god? The enemy of our souls would like you to believe that you can do just that. And many people are embracing this idea called transhumanism. It literally means “beyond human”. All over the world, scientists and intellectuals are joining […]

The wider evangelical church is suffering terribly from theological bankruptcy. A recent Barna survey is particularly revealing. Their report reads in part:

Overall, the current research revealed that only nine percent of all American adults have a biblical worldview. Among the 60 subgroups of respondents that the survey explored was one defined by those who said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is important in their life today and that they are certain that they will go to Heaven after they die only because they confessed their sins and accepted Christ as their savior. Labeled “born again Christians,” the study discovered that they were twice as likely as the average adult to possess a biblical worldview. However, that meant that even among born again Christians, less than one out of every five (19 percent) had such an outlook on life

The Barna Group’s research goes on to reveal that 79 percent of those identifying as “born again Christians” firmly believe the Bible is accurate in all its teachings — which is pretty good, I guess — but it also reveals that only 46 percent of these “born agains” believe in absolute moral truth, only 40 percent believe Satan is real, and only 47 percent strongly reject the idea that you can earn your way to heaven. Further, only 62 percent of the born-again Christians surveyed strongly believe that Jesus was sinless.

This data is very sobering. It indicts evangelicals, yes, but surely it also indicts the information centers they are learning from. It demonstrates that over the last generation, not only has America become less Christian, but professing Christians have become less Christian.

I think this is the direct result of evangelicalism’s relentless prioritization of what seems useful over what is true. We have tended to favor the practical half-truth rather than the (allegedly) impractical whole truth.

Brothers and sisters, we ought to recover the roots of real Christianity before those who care are too few to do anything useful about it. Part of that recovery will involve identifying some of the factors that contribute to the problem. Some of these will be difficult to consider, but we ought to consider them anyway.

Cold Case Christianity: What Can We Do to Help Young People Remain in the Faith?

In this episode of the Cold-Case Christianity Podcast, J. Warner Wallace provides four simple principles parents can employ to help their kids defend what they believe as Christians. Given the high rate of attrition for young Christians, is there anything the Church (and parents in particular) can do to address the challenge?

Here is part 1 broadcast:

Here is part 2 broadcast:

Marriage, Church and the State

by Bill Muehlenberg

Sometime next month the US Supreme Court will issue its decision on homosexual marriage. Many of us fear it will be another disaster, like Roe v Wade – a handful of unelected and unrepresentative judges will strike down the nation’s and/or states’ laws and seek to force sodomite marriage on everyone, whether they like it or not.

Everyone concerned about the fundamental institution of marriage, especially Christians, will need to have a major rethink as to how we respond, and what changes, if any, we embark upon. The whole issue of the state’s role in matters of marriage and family may well need to be reassessed.

Last week, I wrote of several ways in which Paul evidenced his love for the very difficult congregation of Corinth. Now, I will add one more item to that list and suggest one very practical application of pastoral love.

The Pew Research Center has reported recently on the continuing increase of the “nones”–the religiously unaffiliated. Over the past five years, says Pew, “the unaffiliated have increased from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults. Their ranks now include more than 13 million self-described atheists and agnostics (nearly 6% of the U.S. public), as well as nearly 33 million people who say they have no particular religious affiliation (14%).”
On first glance it might appear that Christianity is in decline. The truth is rather more complex–in some ways encouraging and in other ways ominous, for what the numbers signify is a widening polarization of American society due to the collapse of the middle.

Nominal Christianity in Decline

The “middle” to which I’m referring is nominal Christianity, which is where many of these new “nones” have come from, according to researcher Ed Stetzer. Nominal Christians are decreasing in number, but convictional Christians are holding virtually steady. Church attendance, says Stetzer, has hardly changed in America since the 1940s. What we’re seeing, then, is not so much a decline in practicing, believing Christians, as a relatively sudden shrinkage in the number of nominal believers.

The Partially Understandable Riddle of Congregational Christianity

Nominal Christianity’s decline isn’t hard to understand; in fact, I’ve never quite grasped the appeal of what Stetzer calls congregational Christianity. One of his two categories of nominal Christianity, congregational Christianity essentially comprises those who would say “such-and-such a church is my church,” but whose beliefs are weak and who attend infrequently. (His other nominal category is cultural Christianity: those who identify as Christians simply because they live in a culture that’s been significantly shaped by the faith.)

Congregational Christianity has long baffled me. Sunday morning services are generally called worship services. What or whom do congregational Christians worship, if not the living God as sovereign King over their lives? And why would they make time for Bible lessons when they hardly believe in the Bible?

The Collapse of the Middle

Yet truly congregational Christians were once commonplace. In my youth it was not considered unusual for people to attend church purely for the social connections it provided, or even the business contacts. Some of these congregational Christians didn’t realize it, but they’d been labeled the C&E crowd, as in “Christmas and Easter.”

Church attendance still swells on those two holidays, but not like it used to, if my impressions are correct. I’ll say this for the C&E crowd, though: At least they knew what Christmas and Easter were about. Most Americans did, once upon a time, but no longer…

For better or worse, the spiritual landscape of the United States is shifting.

Millennials are the least likely generation to believe in God. Nones are on the rise. And according to projections from Pew Research, Muslims will overtake Jews to become the second largest U.S. religious group by 2050.

Churches accustomed to operating within a culture dominated by a Judeo-Christian mindset will need to learn how to engage others in this new spiritual environment.

It wasn’t so long ago that most Americans had some type of religious affiliation or church background. Today, it’s not uncommon to have friends, neighbors, and coworkers who have no memory of going to church or who grew up in a faith other than Christianity. When reaching out to their communities, churches need to consider that those they are engaging may have a very different worldview.

Despite the global decline of the nonreligious, in 35 years, 1 in 4 Americans will be unaffiliated with any religion. In addition, adherents of minority religions will climb from 5 to 8 percent of the U.S. population.

Increasingly, churches and Christians will interact with those who have non-biblical worldviews. To help us better understand how to reach our neighbors more effectively, we spoke with Mary Jo Sharp, assistant professor of apologetics at Houston Baptist University.

Sharp is the author of Defending the Faith: Apologetics in Women’s Ministry, two apologetic Bible studies, Resilient Faith and Why Do You Believe That?, and a contributor to several other publications.

Here are four things Sharp says Christians need to know as we move into this new era of American religious life.

1. Know what you believe.

The first step in preparing to talk with others about their beliefs is to understand your own…

There is hardly a practice in the local church that is misused more than “church discipline.” Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have many answers and its misuse is understandable. I think there are three primary ways we can find it misused: 1) It is never used at all, 2) it is used in an unbiblical way, and 3) people are brought in for discipline for “sins” that don’t require its use.

[Tweet “There is hardly a practice in the church that is misused more than “church discipline.””]

Matthew 18:15-17 is the primary passage that speaks to the practice of church discipline (even if we are still left with a lot of questions).

First, let’s say this: the purpose of church discipline is the restoration of the brother in sin (Matt. 18:15), to bring recognition to the seriousness of sin (1 Tim. 5:20), and to protect the church from the influence of sin (1 Cor. 5:6). This much is clear.

Here is what Christ has to say about it in Matthew

Matthew 18

15 “And if your brother sins, go and reprove him in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.

16 “But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed.

17 “And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax-gatherer. (NAS)

Eight trends about church members on social media

On a few occasions, I have addressed the topic of church leaders on social media. I obviously have a fascination with this form of communication. Indeed, I see it as one of the great modern-day vehicles for good or harm.

In this post, I address eight trends related to church members who use social media, specifically in relation to the churches where they are members. As a note of clarification, most of my data comes from Twitter and Facebook. There are, obviously, many other types of social media.

More church members use social media to encourage others in their churches. These words of encouragement are typically directed toward pastors and church staff. The good news is that these tweets and posts seem to be more frequent and pervasive.

Church members increasingly use social media to point others to interesting articles related to Christianity and church life. Indeed, I am encouraged to see many such visits to my blog and to other sites that include information on faith and church life.

Though in the minority, an increasing number of church members use social media to attack and criticize church leaders. I recently read a scathing attack on a pastor. It was filled with venom and vitriol.

More non-Christians are viewing such attacks as normative for Christians. They thus have no desire to associate with Christians or come to our churches. I have heard from many of these non-Christians myself.

A number of church members are using social media wisely to share the gospel. I have been greatly encouraged to read many tweets and posts that point readers to articulate and loving presentations of the gospel. May their numbers increase!

Church members are using social media with increasing frequency to share prayer requests.On more than one occasion, I have seen a prayer request spread virally. It is very encouraging to see the power of prayer on this modern medium.

Some church members use social media as means to share activities and ministries in the church. Indeed, social media has become one of the primary forums to invite others to the church by letting people know what is taking place in the congregations.

While the use of social media by church members is overwhelmingly positive, the toxic users of these forums still get an inordinate amount of attention. It’s the “car accident syndrome.” Traffic slows down to see the havoc created by the accident.

Like most vehicles or instruments, church members can use social media for good or harm. The caution we all should heed is that social media tends to magnify our voices in unprecedented ways.

This article was originally published at ThomRainer.com on October 15, 2014.

Thom S. Rainer serves as president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources. Among his greatest joys are his family: his wife Nellie Jo; three sons, Sam, Art, and Jess; and seven grandchildren. Dr. Rainer can be found on Twitter @ThomRainer and at facebook.com/Thom.S.Rainer.

John MacArthur: “Hope for a Doomed Nation” AKA Love in the time of evil

John MacArthur preached on Sunday. It was a sermon from the pastor side of him, not the teacher side of him. He did not explain the bible verse-by-verse. Instead, he was speaking from the heart to his flock about today’s world.

He quickly reviewed the tenets of the Holy Spirit created restraints put upon the world so it does not self-destruct from sin. Conscience, family, civil law/government and the church are four ways the Spirit restrains sin in the world, MacArthur summarized from a recent sermon. In addition, Romans 1 shows what God does to societies when societies leap over those bounds; sexual revolution, homosexual revolution, then reprobate mind. He said we are in the midst of judgment, the wrath of abandonment, since it can be clearly seen that America has leaped beyond those restraints and God has given us over to those different kinds of perversity. There IS an eschatological wrath, and there IS an eternal wrath, but the current judgment is neither of those. The eschatological wrath is coming, MacArthur said, and we can all agree, that is promised. But the current wrath is the judgment of abandonment. “That one is not coming. We’re in the midst of it,” he said.

Dr MacArthur usually takes a several week vacation the beginning of June. He said at this point in his sermon,

“So as we look at America, and I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few weeks when I’m not here, I’m just pre-empting that a little bit by helping you to be able to think through whatever happens.”

He then listed 12 points that are driving this nation to its terrible demise, a spiritual pathology that is causing us as a nation to run so fast to the cliff.

It was a really interesting sermon. I think any one with discerning, biblical sense can see how far along the prophetic timeline we are. Many people I work with who are of biblical maturity and discernment believe this as well. I know I do. Imagine believing we are so close to the edge of some kind of terrible, visible disaster, that MacArthur believes something drastic might happen even in the next few weeks as he is gone from the pulpit. To be so close to something we all sense will occur, he is unwilling to leave his flock without preparing them biblically to be able to cope with “whatever happens.”

He ended with Matthew 5:43. Love our enemy. No matter what happens, while we were still enemies, Jesus came down to rescue us, His enemies. So we are to love our enemies because we were them before grace cam. The enemy is our mission field.

You’re never more like God than when you love your enemies, because you were one of the enemies God loved. Romans 5:10, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God. Your enemy is your mission field. The world of enemies was God’s mission field. God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son. …

To convert a sinner from his eternal doom is of far greater significance than the deliverance of an entire nation from temporal evil

His speaking of Godly Love after 47 minutes of darkness was a Light that was powerful and incisive. Imagine demonstrating that kind of love in this very dark world. It will stand out brightly.

WHI-1260 | Consumerism, Pragmatism, & The Triumph of the Therapeutic

This week on the White Horse Inn we had the opportunity to talk with Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith. He is the author of several books including Soul Searching and Souls in Transition. In his research Smith coined the phrase “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” to describe the faith of most religious teens, and the religion he fears of their parents as well due to the failings of church leaders and parents to catechize and teach the doctrine of life in Christ.

Many churches in our day attempt to make their services relevant and entertaining in order to attract people in the marketplace of competing options. The focus often centers on practical lessons designed to help us cope with life’s problems. But what are the social and historic roots of this particular approach to ministry? Join us this week on the White Horse Inn as we discuss consumerism, pragmatism, and the therapeutic within the church.

GUEST QUOTE

“I think that the historical, cultural, and philosophical roots of moralistic therapeutic deism go way back, but I think for evangelicalism part of what it means to be an evangelical in the United States since WWII is not to be a fundamentalist. Yet, part of one’s identity in not being a fundamentalist is, you’re always pushing towards the ‘We’re not rigid. We’re not doctrinaire. We’re not closed minded.’ Which is good, but every good thing can be pushed in a problematic direction.

“In evangelicalism this has been pushed too far… in the direction of ‘We can be cool Christians and participate in the culture, just like everybody else, and it’s just fine.’ The ‘make Jesus cool kind of thing’… craving the affection of the American public. It’s almost a pathetic impulse to be respectable and to be relevant.”

– Christian Smith

TERM TO LEARN

“Moralistic Therapeutic Deism“

When Christian Smith and his fellow researchers with the National Study of Youth and Religion at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill took a close look at the religious beliefs held by American teenagers, they found that the faith held and described by most adolescents came down to something the researchers identified as “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.”

As described by Smith and his team, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism consists of beliefs like these: 1. “A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.” 2. “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.” 3. “The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.” 4. “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.” 5. “Good people go to heaven when they die.”

That, in sum, is the creed to which much adolescent faith can be reduced. After conducting more than 3,000 interviews with American adolescents, the researchers reported that, when it came to the most crucial questions of faith and beliefs, many adolescents responded with a shrug and “whatever.”

Obeying Old Testament Laws And Rituals

Q. I’ve heard a few preachers say that as Christians, we must observe or maintain certain OT rituals, laws, feasts, etc. I thought that with Christ’s death and sacrifice those were no longer necessary. As born-again believers and Christians, are we to still observe Old Covenant and/or Old Testament laws & rituals?

Where Was The Lord?

Q. After Jesus rose from the dead, He stuck around the region for a full 40 days before His ascension to Heaven. From what facts I can glean, He only appeared to His disciples on three occasions in that 6 week time-frame. Where, and what was He doing in between visits?

Is Israel The Bride?

Q. Recently, I got hit with an interesting interpretation of the bride. This group of people believes that Israel is the bride, they are pre trib believers and they think that we go to heaven to rule there, but that the Lord comes to marry Israel and rule with them on the earth. They had several Old Testament passages to support this view. I brought up the book of Ruth and the typology of Joseph and his gentile bride. Beyond that I am kind of fuzzy on defending the church being the bride. Can you help me with this?

Understanding Amos 8-9

Q. For some reason, Amos 8-9 keeps presenting itself to me. When I read these chapters, I’m not sure if they are history or prophecy. Some of it sounds like history. And yet in a few places Amos uses the term “in that day”, a reference to the end times. Is that the case here? Amos 8:9 speaks about the sun going down at noon and the earth being dark. Was this the crucifixion event or is it speaking of a time yet future? And the “time of mourning for an only son”. Is that future? The famine of the hearing of the words of the Lord – is that future or past? Then in the latter part of Amos 9, it speaks of “raising up the fallen booth of David”. I see some partial fulfillment of Verses 11 – 15 today, but there are some things in these verses that seem to point to conditions present in the millennial period. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. continue reading

Dual Covenant Theology

Q. I do not believe in Dual Covenant Theology. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” John 14:6. Messianic Jews are part of the church, so they are saved. The scriptures also say that God has a covenant with the Jews and Israel. Although the church age Jews have not acknowledged Jesus as their Savior and therefore are not saved, God has brought them back to the land of Israel. Is it because, although they have not accepted Jesus, God will always keep his covenant with them as His people, whether they believe in Jesus or not? continue reading

Building Israel’s Temple

Q. I understand that in Bible prophecy, the 3rd temple has to be built before anti-Christ appears. Will the rapture takes place before the completion of the temple or after the completion? I saw in a website that the Temple Institute, an organization in charge of the rebuilding of the temple project in Israel, has already started building the 3rd temple. Does it imply that the 3 1/2 years of peace for Israel is coming very soon, say perhaps between the year 2012 to 2015? continue reading

The Case For Eternal Punishment

A Bible Study by Jack Kelley

“And they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.” (Isaiah 66:24)

Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner?

“My Last Day” — the Jesus Anime

9 powerful minutes of animation that begins with a thief behind bars watching the scourging of Jesus, and it ends with the thief dying next to Jesus, and waking to see Him in a beautiful place.

The dying thief: What was so great about his faith?

There are many acts of extraordinary faith in the Bible. The one that has impressed me the most concerns the dying thief on the cross. We could take the approach that he had nothing to lose, so he decided to cast his lot with Jesus. But this makes absolutely no sense of the text and the context.

In this conversion we have a specific fulfillment of Christ’s first words on the cross. No sooner had Christ spoken the words, “Father, forgive them,” had the Father answered that prayer by turning a once-reviling criminal into a Christ-glorifying saint. While the soon-to-be converted criminal was not directly responsible for Christ’s death, he nevertheless joined with those who were and was thus indirectly addressed when Christ asked for God to forgive “them.”

Christ, the sinless one, was numbered with or counted among the transgressors (Isa. 53:12; Luke 22:37), all of whom have a bigger problem than the day-to-day sins they commit. They hate Christ, the God-man. Anyone who has a master other than the Lord Jesus hates him (Lk. 16:13; Gal. 4:8). That these two criminals loathed him is clearly manifested during the crucifixion: “And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way” (Matt. 27:44).

When the criminal who was converted was doing his worst against Christ, Christ was doing his best for this criminal.

The conversion of the one criminal was most extraordinary and testifies to the power of Christ’s prayer and the grace of God. Why?

This criminal’s faith did not come at a time such as when Christ turned water into wine; or performed miracles, such as walking on water, opening the eyes of a blind man, or raising Lazarus from the dead. No! The criminal believed on the Messiah while he was hanging as one cursed upon a tree. The criminal trusted in and boldly defended the one whose disciples had abandoned him. Jesus was at his lowest when this criminal asked to be remembered in Christ’s kingdom.

When he was on the cross, did anyone publicly cry out, as John the Baptist did, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn. 1:29)? But this is essentially what the dying thief did. Little wonder, then, that Christ should promise him a place in his kingdom: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk. 23:43).

The criminal acknowledged he was guilty; he acknowledged that Christ was not (“this man has done nothing wrong”); he feared God; but, and here is the key: the criminal did not merely want to be in a better place. He wanted to be with Christ in a better place: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Lk. 23:42). The criminal believed “against all hope”.

Heaven is a better place because that is where Christ is. Everyone wants to go to heaven, but not everyone wants to go to Christ’s heaven. Not so with this criminal: he saw, with his eyes, Christ at his worst; but with the eyes of faith, he believed that Christ would soon be at his best, and so put his faith in a dying king.

Christ is always – always! – willing to save even the most miserable of sinners. A recognition of guilt (Lk. 23:40) and a confidence in him and not ourselves (Lk. 23:42) will always lead to the most assuring truth a sinner can receive: the Savior welcomes such into his paradise!

“One is saved, and we may not despair; the other is lost, and we may not presume.” Spurgeon

Remember the thief.

It can be a difficult situation if someone you are witnessing to asks about the fate of a loved one who died and was not a Christian. Simply say, “Only God knows the eternal destiny of the person, and the Scriptures assure us that He will do what is right. So we can take consolation from that.” Some may be tempted to say that the loved one went to hell, but the truth is that we don’t know what happened minutes before their death. Remember the thief on the cross.

Our Time is Short

Ready to start your new life with God?

Who do you think that I am?

With that brief question Jesus Christ confronted His followers with the most important issue they would ever face. He had spent much time with them and made some bold claims about His identity and authority. Now the time had come for them either to believe or deny His teachings.

Who do you say Jesus is? Your response to Him will determine not only your values and lifestyle, but your eternal destiny as well.

“A simple layman armed with Scripture is to be believed above a pope or a council without it…” – Martin Luther

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Like this:

Seems like there has been some new materials from Francis Schaeffer being uploaded on Youtube!

Francis Schaeffer has written a book called “A Christian Manifesto.” Sadly I read it years ago and don’t remember much of it anymore. Schaeffer has gone on a speaking tour under the same name and this particular talk was filmed at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (Formerly where D. James Kennedy preached at) in 1982.